Privacy and your data

Your documents, chats and API keys stay on your Mac. PDF Pals never moves or changes your files.

What goes to the AI provider

  • Answers: with a cloud model, your question and the passages needed to answer it go to that provider.
  • Search: the Embedding model in Settings ▸ Models decides where documents are indexed. The local model keeps indexing on your Mac.
  • Local mode keeps everything on your Mac. See local mode and local models.

Hide personal details

In Settings ▸ Privacy ▸ Hide before sending to AI, choose what to replace before text leaves your Mac: Credit card numbers, Email addresses, Phone numbers and Monetary amounts.

Settings, Privacy: crash reports, usage analytics and the Hide before sending to AI options

This applies to documents the next time they're indexed. To apply it now, choose Re-index Everything… at the bottom of Documents.

Crash reports and analytics

Share Crash Reports and Share Usage Analytics in Settings ▸ Privacy are anonymous and never include your documents or chats.

Delete old chats

In Settings ▸ Storage, Keep chats can move chats older than 1 year or 30 days to the Trash. Pinned chats are kept. All chats ▸ Delete… deletes every chat. Your documents stay in the library.